September Family Chess Night @ Bookmans on Speedway
September Chess Puzzle by Paul Morphy
created in 1848
Can you solve the puzzle to mate in two moves? White to move.
Bring your puzzle solution to Bookman’s on Speedway Family Chess Night 6:30-8:30 (First Wednesday of every month)–this month Wednesday September 7–and win a free prize. The whole family, new and experienced players are all invited to join us to play chess.
Paul Morphy and Robert James Fischer
America’s World Chess Champions
Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer are the only Americans to be the world’s best chess players–Morphy in the late 19th century and Fischer in the 20th century (1972).
Bobby Fischer 1960
Fischer had said that Morphy and the Cuban Champion, Jose Capablanca, were the chess players he most admired. He preferred their styles to all others– Morphy’s accuracy, Capablanca’s “light touch”—and acknowledged their brilliant natural talents.
Morphy and Lowenthal in 1858
Morphy, born in New Orleans in 1837 was an early chess prodigy, learning and mastering the game by watching his father and uncle play. By the time he was 12 years old he had defeated the Hungarian chess master Johann Lowenthal in a match of three games (pictured above). By 1859 he was considered the World Champion after a triumphant chess tour in Europe. He died in 1884.
This month’s chess puzzle is said to be the only puzzle that Morphy created, composed when he was eleven years old.
More about these great American champions in puzzles to come.
References:
Paul Morphy: The Pride and the Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2010
Bobby Fischer Goes to War, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Harper Collins Publisher, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_morphy
YouTube interviews: Bobby Fischer Tells You Why Chess is Boring and Tells You His Favorite Players, Last Interview Part 5
Fischer photo: Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-76052-0335,_Schacholympiade,_Tal_(UdSSR)_gegen_Fischer_(USA).jpg
Categories: Chess Event
